The co-founder of Flipkart, in a free-wheeling chat on Thursday at SAP Labs India’s launch of its second accelerator programme, spoke on topics rarely touched, joked with the audience and gave colourful anecdotes about the company he built.

After IIT-Delhi, Binny had worked in Sarnoff Corp, a company doing R&D in vision technologies. Between 2005 and 2006, he applied twice to Google for technology roles and was rejected both times.

“I was always interested in technology and had a wonderful run in Sarnoff. I thought Google might be a great fit.” In 2006, Sachin Bansal, who became his Flipkart co-founder later, got Binny into Amazon as a senior software engineer.

One of his key challenges today, Binny said, is to convince his wife to purchase fruits and vegetables from Flipkart instead of BigBasket. “So everyday, she goes online and buys off BigBasket and I try convincing her about our site. Hey, maybe you should try out some of our new features... But no, I still haven’t been able to convince her.”

Binny spoke about his bonding with Sachin. “One of the stories that cracks us up is how Sachin was the one who referred me to Amazon and got a big fat bonus. And it gets funnier, because eight months later I quit. And Sachin had to cough up the money to pay back Amazon.” The referral bonus programme mandated that the referred employee must stay in the company for a certain minimum period.

The audience was in splits when Binny spoke about some unexpected consequences during their Big Billion Day sales, when Sachin and he would do some doorto-door deliveries to understand customers better.

“Some people don’t recognise us and the conversation is casual. Others do, and take photographs. But there was one customer who just wouldn’t let me go. And not just him, but his entire family was keen on stuffing me. So I got plied with chai, mithai; more chai and mithai. And since customer is king, can’t say ‘No’,” he said.

About his early life and schooling, Binny said it was a surprise to him that he being a person passionate about sports and just okay in studies, went on to join IIT. He said the years in IIT-Delhi still remain some of the best years of his life.

“IIT-Delhi has a unique hostel culture. You were more loyal to your hostel than your department, course or batchmates. The rivalry between the different hostels was intense and played out during sporting events, cultural shows. There would be sloganeering, cheering and anticheering; more anti-cheering than anything. I was in Shivalik hostel and the bonds I forged there carried over later on in life. I ended up staying with 6-7 of my former hostel mates when I came to Bangalore, till we all moved on or got married,” he said.